Janine Sikes, Public Relations Director for UF, confirmed to Camille Marino that she was in receipt of $566.64. This was the price Sikes put on Marino’s request to release public information — approximately 1,600 veterinary records from 2009 documenting the torture of 33 nonhuman primates in UF’s laboratories. Through the course of several email exchanges, Sikes revealed that Marino was not paying for public records but, rather, for UF’s counsel to sift through the “public” records to determine what “public” information would be redacted, deleted, or otherwise obscured before it was released into the “public” domain.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

At the close of two weeks, Marino wrote Sikes to inquire about the status of the records. Sikes responded:

“We are working to produce the records you seek. I will contact you when they are ready.”

Given that Florida is one of 15 states with no stipulated time frame in which public agencies are to fulfill their obligations under “sunshine law” legislation, NIO Florida has stipulated our own time frame in which we deem compliance with our demand for public information fair and appropriate. However, as we approach that date and further action will be required, we see no evidence of compliance on the part of UF.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Lisa Grossman phoned Janine Sikes to follow-up on the status of the records documenting the torture of the 33 primates in 2009:

“I told her somewhere in the call that I was the ‘calm one’ in NIO Florida but, after 30 days, ‘who knows’ what she might want to expect. Janine is a cooool cucumber and her voice only broke once. I told her that I really didn’t like the way she was prolonging the records being delivered and in 30 days from 11/17, we would be exposing her as complicit in UF hiding the truth about what they spend taxpayer money on. The only time she seemed upset, which was the right time, was when she stopped me to say ‘now wait a minute! Have you read my emails?’ I said ‘yes’ and that none of us like her only reply of ‘I will contact you when they are ready.’ She says, ‘No, I said we are working on it and we are.’ I said ‘well keep working and I hope you don’t embarrass easily’ because we will do a background check on you and expose all that it brings up: divorce, being fired, etc. She snapped ‘well you just do what you have to do!'”

Rest assured, Janine, that while your lawyers are doctoring the records, we are certainly doing what we have to!

Eleventh Hour for Animals (the Florida-based chapter of Negotiation Is Over) are independent journalists protected by the First Amendment-based privilege that protects us from legal actions that threaten the integrity of our effort to gather and disseminate news. There is no intent, express or implied, to encourage any illegal activity and we assume no liability for how the information we publish will be used by any third party. All donations to Eleventh Hour go exclusively to legal fees and other actions taken directly to help the animals.